1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to computer information storage and, more particularly, to creating and using access/change logs within a computer system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Data storage within a computer system is generally organized using a file system that consists of various objects including files, directories, devices, file sets, and the like. The file system organizes these objects to ensure that a user can find and utilize the objects that are available to the computer system. File systems can be localized within a single computer or distributed over a number of computers as a distributed file system.
To provide a user with an understanding of objects within the computer system as well as the changes and/or accesses to objects that occur over time, file access/change logs are used to track the changes that occur to the objects. Commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 10/334,101, filed Dec. 30, 2002; 11/064,557, filed Feb. 24, 2005; and 60/695,799, filed Jun. 30, 2005, all of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties, each contain a detailed description of the creation and use of file change logs that are used to track changes and accesses to files stored on a computer or network.
A file access/change log identifies the files (and other objects) by inode number, file name, path name and/or reference number so that applications that utilize the file system can find objects and quickly ascertain which objects have been recently changed or accessed. The types of changes that are logged within a file access/change log include selected changes to metadata, links to the file, and attributes of the file as well as file creation, removal, access and modification dates. In some embodiments, file access/change logs identify files that have been modified, as well as the nature of the modification.
In very large file systems, the file access/change logs can be enormous such that a substantial amount of computer time is required to create and maintain the file access/change log. Such processing can be burdensome to the computer resources available to users.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a method and apparatus for improving the creation and use of access/change logs.